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Was Shakespeare 
a Lawyer ? 



AN ADDRESS BY 



JOHN H. SENTER, 

President of the Vermont Bar Association. 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE ANNUAL MEETING, 
OCTOBER 27, 1903. 



montpelier, vt. 

Argus and Patriot Press 

1903. 









LIBRARY 

T*Cv Cai 

L 6 1904 

' "aovrlirht Entry 

,W' -i - : -- 1 d 4 ■ 

CLASS Ct XXc. No. ] 



10f»Y B 



J 



<o 






Copyright, 1903. 

All Rights Reserve.! 



Was Shakespeare 
a Lawyer? 



Gentlemen of the Vermpnt Bar Association : 

Your constitution provides that your President shall de- 
liver an address at your annual meeting, and while I think 
in the present case that provision would be more honored in 
the breach than in the observance, yet in accordance with 
your constitution and custom, I have prepared a paper upon 
the subject — Was Shakespeare a Lawyer? 

This question has often been discussed as a part of the 
Baconian Theory. Advocates of that theory claim to prove 
that Bacon wrote these plays instead of Shakespeare, by 
showing that it was impossible for a man of Shakespeare's 
training to have had such knowledge of legal terms and 
legal procedure as is shown in his plays, and, therefore, 
that they must have been written by Bacon, who was a good 
lawyer. It has also been discussed on the other side by 
many who claim that by reason of the many mistakes in 
law, geography, and other matters contained therein, they 
could not have been written by Bacon, as he was acknowl- 
edged to be accurate in all such matters. 

It has also been discussed independently of the Baconian 
Theory, and has received the attention in all its aspects of 
noted lawyers, both in England and America, among whom 
may be named Lord Campbell, Judge Holmes, Senator 



Cushman K. Davis, and many others, who have shown in 
the discussion of this question great research, talent and 
erudition. 

In discussing this question, I cannot, in the short time to 
which this address must be limited, attempt to answer all 
the arguments of those who believe in Shakespeare's legal 
acquirements. I can only cite a few of the passages in his 
various plays which are claimed to show most clearly that 
the writer must have had a legal education to have been able 
to express himself so accurately in the technical language of 
the law ; and to point out a few of the sources from which 
the legal language comes when it is used properly ; and to 
show in a few other cases where he has entirely miscon- 
ceived the legal effect of the terms which he uses. 

It was 174 years after the death of Shakespeare that the 
theory that he had spent any time in a lawyer's office was 
first brought out, in the work of Malone, published in 1790, 
in which 24 passages were cited in support of the conten- 
tion. 

It has been surmised by those who seek to show this 
special legal knowledge in Shakespeare that from 1579' 
when he was taken from school, until 1586, when it is said 
he went to London and commenced his career as an attache 
of the theatre, he spent his time in a lawyer's or attorney's 
office poring over the works of Glanviile, Bracton, Fleta, 
Britton and Littleton, the fathers of the common law, and 
in that time acquired such an insight into the principles of 
the science of jurisprudence that he was able to weave into 
a large number of his plays many of the technical terms of 
the old common law, and properly to apply its principles in 
many instances. 

It is true that Shakespeare uses legal words and phrases 



many times in his plays, and often uses them correctly ; and 
it is also true that in some of the plays there is little, if any- 
thing, that indicates any knowledge, technical or otherwise, 
of the law. 

Before I enter into an argument, based on the evidence 
found within his works, as to whether Shakespeare was or 
was not a lawyer, a doctor, a butcher, or a sailor, I wish to 
call attention to a few external facts regarding this matter. 

It is conceded that about 1579 Shakespeare was taken 
from the grammar school at Stratford by reason of his 
father's financial distress. 

In Shakespeare's day, to become a lawyer was very ex- 
pensive and difficult. Admissions to the Bar were matters 
of time, study and expense. Twelve years of instruction 
and study were required before a student could plead in any 
Court in Westminster, or even subscribe his name to a plead- 
ing. Candidates for admission to the Bar in those days must 
have means sufficient to support them during the twelve years 
in which they were non-producers. The law was then ex- 
clusively the calling of the wealthy, and the poverty of 
Shakespeare's father and family would have been an abso- 
lute bar to Shakespeare's entering that profession had he 
had ever so much inclination so to do. 

That he did not go to London and enter any of the inns 
of court as a student is certain, but it is insisted by some that 
he may have entered the office of some attorney at Stratford 
and spent those years which have never been positively ac- 
counted for as an attorney's clerk ; but had it been the inten- 
tion of the family that Shakespeare should prosecute the 
study of this learned profession, it does not seem natural or 
probable that he would have been taken from school at the 
early age of fifteen. Much more likely, so far as probabili- 



ties go, are the traditions that he was a school-teacher, or 
that he was apprenticed to a glover, a butcher, or assisted 
his father, who was a wool merchant. But the financial re- 
verses of his father which caused his withdrawal from school, 
make almost a conclusive presumption that he never entered 
upon the study of law during those years between 1579 and 
1586. It also appears that when about eighteen years of age 
he married his wife, who was some seven or eight years 
older than he, and shortly after that marriage his family in- 
creased and he had it to provide for. 

There is another piece of external evidence which might 
not appeal so strongly to laymen as to members of our pro- 
fession, and that is, a man who has made the law a study is 
very much less likely to violate law than one who has not, 
and from the best authorities it seems that Shakespeare was 
not very careful in that respect. He was a poacher, and 
many times complained of, reprimanded and punished for 
his encroachments upon the preserves of Sir William Lucv, 
and that he was finally prosecuted for deer stealing is given 
as the reason why he left his wife and children at Stratford 
and went up to London. Had he been engaged in the study 
of law, he would have acquired such a respect for law that 
he would not have been a constant law-breaker during that 
period of his life. 

A court was held every fortnight at Stratford, and it ap- 
pears from that part of the records which has been preserved 
that his father was engaged, either as plaintiff or defendant, 
in about fifty suits at law ; that he served on the manorial 
jury, as an assessor of fines and as an arbitrator. 

Stratford at that time had about 1,800 inhabitants, but no 
particular intercourse or commerce with other places. So 
it would seem that, having half a dozen or more lawyers, 



the inhabitants thereof were prone to litigation, and in a 
country town of so small population, of course the court's 
business was everybody's business, and was generally dis- 
cussed. 

His father held an important position in Stratford ; for 
over twenty years he was in office ; part of this time he was 
High Bailiff, and presided in this court. From his father's 
experience and from these associations, Shakespeare must 
have gained considerable legal lore, but it will be noticed 
throughout all his works there are no allusions to the Court 
of Chancery. 

Shakespeare's father, also, was connected with many 
transactions in real estate which called for the advice and 
assistance of a lawyer. In 1575 he purchased two houses 
in Stratford; in 1578 he mortgaged the estate of Asbies ; in 
1587 a suit was commenced against him to recover ten 
pounds upon an obligation upon which he was surety for 
his brother. He made many mortgages and other convey- 
ances, all of which must have come to the attention of 
Shakespeare. 

In 1589 there was instituted in the Court of the Queen's 
Bench the case of John and William Shakespeare vs. 
Edward Lambert, who was the mortgagee of the Asbies 
property; and this suit was brought to recover said prop- 
erty. In 1597 another bill by the same plaintiffs for the 
same cause of action was brought, and Lambert made an- 
swer, to which both the Shakespeares replied. 

Shakespeare's own experience in the law was not incon- 
siderable. He bought several parcels of real estate and 
several houses in Stratford, and had to do with real estate 
transactions by the way of deeds and leases in London. He 
appears, both as plaintiff and defendant, in many cases in 



8 

the court records of his day. His father's experience in law 
was unfortunate, and that may account for the aversion which 
he shows to courts. 

It also must be taken into consideration in all discussion 
of Shakespeare's legal acquirements that many words con- 
cerning legal transactions, and especially conveyances, that 
are confined to the knowledge of the lawyer today, were 
words of common use and knowledge to people who were 
not lawyers in the day of Shakespeare. We should, there- 
fore, exercise a great deal of care that we do not confound 
the knowledge of those words which in Shakespeare's day 
was general among all classes, with the knowledge of those 
words today, when they have, by their disuse in common 
parlance, become exclusively confined to the technical 
knowledge of the Bar. Many of these words, which are 
now mere technical survivals oi a past era in jurisprudence, 
were, at the time when Shakespeare wrote, common expres- 
sions not only of the Bar, but of people familiar with real 
estate transactions. Terms which today indicate research 
and training in the law were then ordinary expressions and 
were well understood, and it did not require that technical 
knowledge to understand them that it does today. When a 
lawyer today speaks of tine and recovery a layman does not 
understand it, because there is no such procedure, but in 
Shakespeare's day it was a common transaction, as well 
known as a deed of quit claim or warranty is today. The 
writ of "praemunire was a common writ in Shakespeare's 
day, and ot common talk, because it was used from Henry 
the Eighth down to a little past Shakespeare's day for the 
purpose of taking property from the death grip of the 
churches and monasteries to fill the coffers of the King. 

In the Elizabethan era there was a great revival in all 



branches of learning. This revival was largely due to the 
action of Henry the Eighth, who had divorced England 
from the Roman Church on account of some little misunder- 
standing between himself and the Pope regarding his various 
personal divorces, and in consequence of that separation he 
had abolished the many monasteries that, up to his time, had 
been scattered over England and had been the home of a 
large number of learned men. Up to the time the clericals 
were put upon their own resources to earn their daily bread, 
nearly all education in law, medicine, and other science was 
confined to the cloisters, whose inmates had, during the dark 
ages, kept alive the lamp of learning, but, turned out of 
house and home, they flocked to London, and began to 
write and give the public the benefit of their knowledge and 
education, which stimulated a great public interest in gen- 
eral learning. The spirit of the time was favorable to the 
diffusion of legal knowledge, and Shakespeare undoubtedly 
associated with many of these men, and might thus have ac- 
quired the scientific knowledge which he has so woven into 
his dramas. 
v About the time that Shakespeare went to London, there 
were many legal treatises published, and the lawyer's library 
grew from a few meagre volumes to a large number of 
works on various subjects. Pulton's "Abstract of Penal 
Statutes" was published in 1577 ; Tholoal's "Digest of 
Original Writs" in 1579; Brooke's "Abridgement of the 
Law" in 1568; Rastall's "Termes de la Ley" in 1572 ; 
"Kitchen on Courts" in 1580; "Crompton on the Office and 
Authority of a Justice of the Peace" in 1583 ; Rastall's 
"Entries" in 1596; "Marwood on Forest Law" in 1568; 
and in the year that Shakespeare came up to London the 
first volume of The Reports was published, which contained 



IO 

notes of cases made by Chief Justice D} r er. Plowden's Com- 
mentaries, or Reports, were published in 157 1, and besides 
this Sir Edward Coke had begun to shed his light upon the 
legal world. 
v Lawyers at that time were great patrons of the theatre, 

and frequenters of houses of public entertainment. That 
lawyers met frequently at the taverns and ordinaries appears 
from the contemporaneous literature of the da}'. 

Dekker, in his Gull's Hornbook, says: "There is an- 
other ordinary at which your London usurer, your stale 
bachelor, and your thrifty attorneys do resort ; the price, 
threepence ; the rooms as full of company as a gaol. If 
they chance to discourse, it is of nothing but statutes, bonds, 
recognizances, audits, subsidies, rents, sureties, enclosures, 
liveries, indictments, outlawries, feoffments, judgments, 
commissions, bankrupts, amercements, and of such horrible 
matter." And it is very probable that Shakespeare dined 
frequently at this ordinary in Alsatia, because when he first 
went to London he had little money, and with his great tal- 
ent for absorbing knowledge from others he, undoubtedly, 
got a smattering of legal lore from this source ; and he must 
have been intimate with the students of the inns of Court 
who were in the habit of playing before Queen Elizabeth at 
Greenwich, as he took part in those theatricals. 

Many plays were presented at the different Inns of Court ; 
Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors at Gray's Inn, Twelfth 
Night at the Inner Temple, and Othello was given at Lord 
Chancellor Ellsmere's before Queen Elizabeth. Several of 
those playwrights and poets with whom Shakespeare was 
intimately associated had been bred to the law, and while 
he was in London his associations must have been largely 
with men deeply versed in legal technicalities. Is it to be 



II 

wondered at that Shakespeare, with his great power of ab- 
sorption and assimilation, should have gathered from this 
atmosphere the legal information which his works disclose? 

There were many words very common to the lawyers of 
those days, and especially real estate lawyers, (and I say 
real estate lawyers because most advocates of the theory that 
Shakespeare was a lawyer claim that those seven years were 
passed in the office of a conveyancer), which are never used 
in Shakespeare's works. The words donor, donee, vendor, 
vendee, grantor, grantee, estop, escheat, evict, apportion, 
apportionment, levy, contingent, contingent remainder, feoff- 
ment, abeyance, corody, mortmain, estovers and emble- 
ments, and many others of that ilk cannot be found in his 
works, but these words were all, in Shakespeare's time, in 
every-day use in offices that made conveyancing their 
business. 

Shakespeare used legal terms in no greater proportion to 
technical terms of other arts and sciences than the impor- 
tance of the law justifies from any writer, but he used many 
law terms not in their legal sense, and many of them erro- 
neously. For instance, in King Lear, Act i, Scene i : 

"We have this hour a constant will to publish 
Our daughters' several dowers, that future strife 
May be prevented now." 

And then Lear proceeds to divide his kingdom and give 
it to his daughters. And in All's Well that Ends Well, 
Act 4, Scene 4, Helena says : 

"Doubt not but heaven 
Hath brought me up to be your daughter's dower." 

That is, Helena was to be the third part of the real estate 

L. of ^. 



12 

of which Diana's husband should die seized — an unlaw- 
yerlike as well as ungallant use of the word. It evidently 
is used here in the sense of dowry. Shakespeare the law- 
yer, and Shakespeare the man, who had spent seven years 
in a conveyancer's office, calls it dower. Referring to the 
books which were authority in the days of Shakespeare, 
we find in Glanville the following definition for dower : 
"The third part of all such freehold lands as her husband 
held at the time of affiancing, and of which he was seized 
in his demesne, is termed a woman's reasonable dower." 1 
Not what her father gave her ; that was her dowry, not her 
dower. Referring to Bracton we get practically the same 
definition, and from Littleton, "Dower was the woman's life 
interest in the lands of which her husband died seized, for 
her and her children's nutriment and support." 2 

Dowry, or dos, was that portion which was given to her 
by her father or her friends at her marriage, and had noth- 
ing whatever to do with dower, and any boy that had served 
a term with a lawyer's firm ought to know the difference and 
the legal distinction between dowry and dower, but of this 
distinction Shakespeare seems to have had no legal apprecia- 
tion. Although he uses the word dower seventeen times, in 
only one place do I find the word rightly used, and that is in 
The Taming of the Shrew, Act 2, Scene i, where Baptista 
says to Tranio : 

"I must confess your offer is the be c t ; 

And, let your father make her the assurance, 

She is your own ; else, you must pardon me, 

If you should die before him, where's her dower?" 



1 Glanville's Book VI. 113. 

2 Vol. 2. Pag-e 49. 



i3 

In Act i, vScene 3, Pericles, Prince of Tyre, Thaliard 
says : 

"For if a king bid a man to be a villain, he's bound by the in- 
denture of his oath to be one." 

An indenture of an oath is an expression no lawyer would 
use. An indenture was a writing pertaining to a bargain or 
contract between two or more parties, when the same matter 
was written twice or more on the same sheet with a space 
between, and then was cut in a serrated or indented line, 
and a part delivered to each of the parties. In Shakespeare's 
time the actual indenting was necessary to constitute an in- 
denture, but an oath of allegiance never had anything to do 
with an indenture, or an indenture with an oath. 

In 1 Henry Fourth, Act 3, Scene 1, when Glendower, 
Hotspur and Mortimer divide up the territory of England 
into three parts, Hotspur says : 

"Methinks my moiety, north from Burton here, 
In quantity equals not one of yours." 

This word "moiety" is frequently used by Shakespeare as 
meaning some other part than half, but this is unlawyerlike, 
because moiety means one of two equal parts, 1 and not one- 
third, as here used. 

In Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 2, the king says : 

"Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen, 
The imperial jointress of this warlike state." 

"Jointress" 2 is a woman who has an estate settled on her 
by her husband, to hold during her life if she survive him, 
and is used as a means for barring dower. The queen could 



1 Littleton, Sec 291. 

2 Les Terines De La Ley, 47 



14 

have neither dower nor jointure in the kingdom, and so this 
word is not used in its technical legal sense, but misused. 

In the ist part of King Henry Sixth, Act i, Scene 3, 
Gloster says : 

"Peace, mayor! thou know'st little of my wrongs, 
Here's Beaufort, that regards nor God nor king, 
Hath here distrain'd the Tower to his use." 

"Distrain'd" is not the proper legal term to use in the 
sense of taking possession of the tower, as is evidently meant 
here. A distress is "the act of taking movable property out 
of the possession of a wrong-doer, to compel the perform- 
ance of an obligation, or to procure satisfaction for a wrong 
committed, like a distress for rent." 1 A lawyer would not 
have used "distrained" in this sense. 

In Henry Fifth, Act 1, Scene 1, Canterbury says: 

"For all the temporal lands which men devout 
By testament have given to the church 
Would they strip from us." 

But men could not then give lands by a testament ; they 
gave personal property by a testament, and real estate, or 
lands, by a will. 2 

In 2 King Henry Fourth, Act 5, Scene 5, Pistol says: 

" 'T is semper idem, for absque hoc nihil est; 't is all in every 
part." 

This is the only use, or attempted use, of absque hoc by 
Shakespeare in any of his works, and here it is not used in 
any legal sense, or with any sense at all. 



1 B Blk. Com. 6. 

2 IV Burns Eccl. Law, 44. 



i5 

One of the oft cited passages from Shakespeare's works to 
show that he was a lawyer is in Act 4, Scene 1, of The 
Comedy of Errors. The goldsmith owed the merchant a 
large sum of money for which he had several times been 
importuned, and the merchant told the goldsmith that as he 
was bound for a voyage to Persia he wanted his guilders for 
that vovage, and unless he made present satisfaction he would 
attach him by the officer he had with him. It. is reasonable 
to suppose that, this obligation being long overdue, he had 
already sued out the original writ, and had with him the 
mesne process upon which Angelo could be arrested, but 
the goldsmith told the merchant that he had delivered a gold 
chain to Antipholus, and was to be paid at five o'clock, and 
requested him to go to the house of Antipholus and receive 
the money ; but the officer descried Antipholus coming, and 
said : 

"That labor may you save; see where he comes." 

Then Angelo demands of Antipholus pay for the chain, 
which Antipholus denies having received, and is told by the 
merchant : 

"My business cannot brook this dalliance. 

Good sir, say whether you'll answer me or no ; 

If not, I'll leave him to the officer. 

Antipholus. I answer you ! What should I answer you? 

Angelo. The money that you owe me for the chain. 

Antipholus. I owe you none till I receive the chain. 

Angelo. You know I gave it you an hour since. 

Antipholus. You gave me none ; you wrong me much to say so. 

Angelo. You wrong me more, sir, in denying it ! 
Consider how it stands upon my credit. 

Merchant. Well, officer, arrest him at my suit. 



i6 



Officer. I do, and charge you in the Duke's name to obey me. 

Angelo. This touches me in reputation. 

Either consent to pay this sum for me, 

Or I attach you by this officer. 
Antipholus. Consent to pa)' thee that I never had? 

Arrest me, foolish fellow, if thou dar'est. 
Angelo. Here is thy fee ; arrest him, officer. 

I would not spare my brother in this case, 

If he should scorn me so apparently. 
Officer. I do arrest you ; you hear the suit. 

Antipholus. I do obey thee till I give the bail ; 

But, sirrah, you shall buy this sport as dear 

As all the metal in your shop shall answer. 
Angelo. Sir, Sir, I shall have law in Ephesus, 

To your notorious shame; I doubt it not." 

So it seems by this law that Angelo, by simply paying an 
officer his fee without any original writ, mesne process or 
any other paper, could have his debtor arrested on the street 
by simply saying to the officer, "Here is thy fee ; arrest him, 
officer." This is not law, and never was law, and no lawyer 
would have made such an error. Then again, later on, in 
Scene 2, when Dromio is sent to Antipholus' wife to get the 
money for his bail, he says : 

"I do not know the matter; he is 'rested on the case." 

Now, this action, Angelo vs. Antipholus, if action it can 
be called without any papers whatsoever, must have been 
debt for the price of the goods sold and delivered. An ac- 
tion on the case for a debt, which is called an action in 
assumpsit today, would not have been the proper action in 
Shakespeare's day. Actions on the case then were confined 
to matters ex delicto, or those arising out of a wrong or tres- 
pass, and case could not then be predicated upon matters 



i7 

arising ex contractu. This play was written about 1593, 
and it was first decided in England that an action on the 
case, the action we call assumpsit, would lie for a debt or for 
goods sold and delivered, in the forty-fourth year of Eliza- 
beth, in Slade's case ; 1 therefore, this action for causes aris- 
ing ex contractu was not known in England until nine years 
after this play was written ; and Shakespeare's legal train- 
ing, whatever he may have had, according to all those who 
claim he studied law, must have been before he went to 
London in 1586 ; so that while he was engaged in the study 
of law or while he was in an attorney's office, the action of 
case founded on an assumpsit or promise was absolutely un- 
known ; and this quotation is an unfortunate one as tending 
to show any technical knowledge of legal procedure in 
Shakespeare, as there was no such law at the time he wrote 
the play, and no such practice at the time he studied law, if 
he ever did. 

Dromio's description of the officer who arrested his master 
has been cited by some of the advocates of Shakespeare's 
lawyership as tending to show that he knew more about the 
law than a layman, and no one can deny that he very well 
describes the common feeling of debtors when arrested for 
debt. Adriana asks, "Where is thy master, Dromio? Is he 
well?" Dromio replies : 

"No, he's in Tartar limbo, worse than hell ; 

A devil in an everlasting garment hath him, 

One whose hard heart is button'd up with steel ; 

A fiend, a fairy, pitiless and rough ; 

A wolf ; nay worse, a fellow all in buff ; 

A back- friend, a shoulder-clapper, one that countermands 

1 4 Rep- 93. 



The passages and alleys, creeks, and narrow lands : 

A hound that runs counter, and yet draws dry-foot well ; 

One that before the judgment carries poor souls to hell." 

Because he has here described the dress of a sheriff's 
officer "a fellow all in buff," and because he has also said 
"one that before the judgment carries poor souls to hell," 
indicating that this was imprisonment on mesne process, and 
not on final execution, it has been reasoned that he must 
have been a lawyer; 1 but any ordinary man of affairs about 
London, as Shakespeare was, must have seen sheriff's 
officers arrest debtors. His father, before Shakespeare left 
Stratford, dared not go to church for fear of being arrested 
for debt. His father for many years was the Chief Magis- 
trate of Stratford, and there must have been debtors arrested 
and conveyed to jail before judgment in Stratford. It was 
common knowledge, not confined to lawyers, that debtors 
could be arrested before final judgment, and confined in jail 
unless bail was furnished. These citations do not show any 
more special technical knowledge in Shakespeare than any 
ordinary person might be expected to have, living under the 
law as it then was. 

The description of the trial of the Duke of Buckingham 

given in Henry Eighth, Act 2, Scene i, has been referred 

to often from the fact that it is related in correct professional 

language : 

"The great duke 

Came to the bar, where to his accusations 

He pleaded still not guilty, and alleg'd 

Many sharp reasons to defeat the law. 

The king's attorney, on the contrary, 

Urg'd on the examinations, proofs, confessions 



1 Campbell's Shakespeare's Legal Acquirements, 46. 



i9 

Of divers witnesses, which the duke desir'd 
To have brought viva voce to his face." 

I must admit that what Shakespeare says here indicates 
familiarity with and knowledge of legal procedure and tech- 
nical legal terms, but upon examination I find that all the 
legal phraseology contained therein, almost word for word, 
is taken from Hall's Chronicles, 1 and Shakespeare only used 
what he found there, as he did in many other instances, 
transposing the words a little, and making use of the facts, 
and using the legal terms which Hall had given in his 
Chronicles ; so that if this proves that anyone was a lawyer, 
it was Hall and not Shakespeare. Rolfe says in his intro- 
duction to this play that Shakespeare turned the details from 
these Chronicles and other writers into dramatic form with 
very slight change of language. 2 

It is also true that in almost all his historical plays 
Shakespeare simply copies the legal language found in the 
works from which he takes his material ; Hall and Holin- 
shed are the sources from which come the legal phraseology 
contained in those plays. That he used these terms many 
times appropriately there can be no question, but it is unfair 
to judge Shakespeare like an ordinary person. Faculties 
like his could "rifle sweets from every source ;" and that he 
did derive material and gain instruction from all quarters is 
unquestionable. It would be as hard to say where such a 
writer as Shakespeare got his knowledge as where a bee 
gets its honey. 

In Act 3, Scene 2, of Henry Eighth, is the famous inter- 
view between Suffolk and Wolsey, where Suffolk says : 
"Lord Cardinal, the king's further pleasure is — 



1 Hall's Chronicles, 623-24. 

2 Rolfe's King Henry Eight, 15. 



20 

Because of all those things you have done of late 

By your power legatine within this kingdom, 

Fall into the compass of a praemunire — 

That therefore such a writ be sued against you ; 

To forfeit all your goods, lands, tenements, 

Chattels, and whatsoever, and to be 

Out of the king's protection. This is my charge." 

Judge Holmes, Senator Davis and others have founded 
their argument that Shakespeare was a lawyer partly upon 
this passage, and to illustrate how slight a basis this offers, 
I will cite from Holinshed, 741-743 : 

"In the meantime the king, being informed that all those 
things the cardinal had done by his power legatine within 
this realm were in the case of the praemunire and its provis- 
ion, caused his attorney, Christopher Hales, to sue out a 
writ of praemunire against him, in the which he licensed him 
to make his attorney. And, furthermore, the seventeenth 
of November the king sent the two dukes of Norfolk and 
Suffolk to the cardinal at Westminster, who went as they 
were commanded, and finding the cardinal there they de- 
clared that the king's pleasure was that he should surrender 
up the great seal into their hands, and to depart simply unto 
Asher. * * * * After this, in the king's bench, his matter 
for the praemunire being called upon, two attorneys, which 
he had authorized by his warrant signed with his own hand, 
confessed the action, and so had judgment to forfeit all his 
lands, tenements, goods and cattels, and to be out of the 
king's protection." 

The only difference between Shakespeare and Holinshed 
in the description of this writ is Holinshed says "case of the 
praemunire," and Shakespeare "compass of a praemunire;" 
and also Holinshed uses the word "cattels" and Shakes- 



21 



peare "chattels," but in Shakespeare's time the words 
"cattels" and "chattels" were used synonymously, and in the 
folio edition of Shakespeare "castles" is used in place of 
"chattels." Evidently this is a mistake, as "chattels" was 
probably the word, yet Senator Davis 1 says that Shakes- 
peare was correct in the language he puts in the cardinal's 
mouth, and says "It will be observed how accurate was 
Shakespeare's understanding, not only of its consequences, 
but of the legal formalities necessary to enforce them." 

In King Richard Second, Act 2, Scene 3, Bolingbroke 
complains to Richard : 

"I am denied to sue my livery here, 
And yet my letters patents give me leave." 

"I am a subject, 
And challenge law ; attorneys are denied me ; 
And therefore personally I lay my claim 
To my inheritance of free descent." 

This comes from Holinshed, every legal term being 
found there used as Shakespeare used it, even the double 
plural "letters patents," and in all the historical plays the 
idea, the legal situation, and the technical legal words are 
taken bodily, often literally, from Holinshed and Hall. 

It is astonishing what recklessness has been shown by 
several of the legal advocates of Shakespeare's lawyership 
in founding their arguments upon expositions of law which 
are correctly given in Shakespeare without investigating the 
sources from which he drew, not only the legal subject, but 
the technical words and phrases used. To show this clear- 
ly, I will cite what Canterbury says in Henry Fifth, Act 1, 
Scene 2, and parallel it with the same subject from Holin- 



1 The Law of Shakespeare, No. 186. Page 220. 



22 



shed, and show that Shakespeare not only got the material 
from which he frames Canterbury's exposition of the Salique 
law, but the very words, from Holinshed. Every detail 
given in this scene is taken from that writer. Even the 
Levitical law, when Canterbury says, 

"For in the book of Numbers is it writ, 
When the man dies, let the inheritance 
Descend unto the daughter," 
is taken from Holinshed, who says, "The archbishop fur- 
ther alledged out of the booke of Numbers this saieing : 
'When a man dieth without a sonne, let the inheritance de- 
scend to his daughter."' 1 

Shakespeare also makes Canterbury say in this scene : 

"There is no bar Holinshed thus details Canterbury's 

To make against your highness' claim to 
France 

But this, which they produce from Phara- 
mond — 

'In terrain Salicam muliures ne sucee- 
daut;' 

'No woman shall succeed in Salique land:' 

Which Salique land the French unjustly 
gloze 

To be the realm of Franco, and Phara- 

HUIIllI 

The founder of this law and female bar. 

Yet their own authors faithfully affirm 

That the laud Salique is in Germany, 

Between the floods of Sala and of Elbe; 

Where Charles the Croat, having- subdued 
the Saxons, 

Who, holding- in disdain the German 
women 

Pot some dishonest manners of their life. 

Established thou this law; to wit, no fe- 
male 

Should be inheritrix in Salique land: 

Which Salique, as 1 said, 'twixt Elbe and 
Sala, 

Is at this day in Germany call'd Meisen. 

Thou dotii it well appear the s.uique law- 
Was not devised for the realm of France: 

Nor did the French possess the Salique 
land 

Until four hundred one and twenty years 

After def unction of King Pharamond, 

Idly suppos'd the founder of this law. 

Who died within the year of our rede m p- 

tiotl 

Four hundred twenty-six; and Charles the 
Great 



Holinshed 
argument: 

"Heroin did he much envie against the 
surmised aud false faiued law Salike 
which the Frenchmen alledge over 
against the kings of England in bane of 
their just title to the crowns of France. 
The verie words of that supposed law are 
these. In terrain Salicam mulieres ne sec- 
cedant, that is to saie, into the Salike 
land let not women succeed. Which the 
French glossers expound to be the realme 
of Fiance, and that this law was made by 
King Pharamond: whereas yet their owne 
authors affirme that the land Salike is in 
Germanie between the rivers of Elbe and 
Sala; and that when Charles the Great 
had overcome the Saxons, he placed there 
certaine Frenchmen, which having in dis- 
deine the dishonest manners of the Ger- 
mane women, made a law, that the females 
should not succeed to any inheritance 
within that land, which at this daie is 
called Meisen, so that, if this be true, this 
law was not made for the realme of 
France, nor the Frenchmen possessed the 
laud Salike. till foure hundred and one 
ami twentie years after the death of Phar- 
amond, the supposed maker oi this Salike 
law, for this Pharamond deceased in the 
veare 42& and Charles the Great subdued 
the s.i von-, and placed the Frenchmen in 
thoseparts beyond the river Sala, in the 
yeare 805, 

''Moreover, it appeared by their owne 

writers that King Pepine, which deposed 

Childerike, claimed the crowne of France, 

e frenerall, for that he was descend- 



l Numbers 27-S, 



23 



Subdued the Saxons, and did beat the 

French 
Beyond the river Sala, in the year 
Eight bundled five. Besides, their writ- 
ers say, 
King: Pepin, which deposed Childeric, 
Did, as heir general, being- descended 
Of Blithild. which was daughter to King 

Clothair, 
Make claim and title to the crown of 

France. 
Hugh Capet — who usurp'd the crown 
Of Charles the duke of Lorraine, sole heir 

male 
Of the true line and stock of Charles the 

Great — 
To find his title with some shows of truth, 
Though, in pure truth, it was corrupt and 

naught, 
Convey'd himself as heir to the Lady Lin- 

gare. 
Daughter to Charlemain, who was the son 
To Lewes the emperor, and Lewes the son 
Of Charles the Great. Also King Lewes 

the Tenth, 
Who was sole heir to the usurper Capet, 
Could not keep quiet in his conscience 
Wearing the crown of France, till satisfied 
That fair Queen Isabel, his grandmother, 
Was lineal of the Lady Ermeiigare, 
Daughter to Charles the foresaid duke of 

Lorraine: 
By the which marriage the line of Charles 

the Great 
Was re-united to the crown of France. 
So that, as clear as is the summer's sun. 
King Pepin's title and Hugh Capet's claim. 
King Lewes his satisfaction, all appear 
To hold in right and title of the female. 
So do the kings of France unto this day; 
Howbeit they would hold up this Salique 

law 
To bar your highness claiming from the 

female. 
And rather choose to hide them in a net 
Than amply to imbare their crooked titles 
Usurp'd from you and your progenitors." 



ed of Blithild, daughter to King Clothair 
the first; Hugh Capet also, who usurped 
the crowne upon Charles, Duke of Lor- 
raine, the sole heire male of the line and 
stocke of Charles the Great, to make his 
title seeme true, and appeare good, though 
in deed it was starke naught, conveied 
himselfe as heirs to the ladie Lingard, 
daughter to King Cliarlemaine sonne to 
Lewes the emperour, that was sou to 
Charles the Great. King Lewes also the 
tenth, otherwise called Saint Lewes, being 
verie heir to the said usurper Hugh Capet, 
could never be satisfied in his conscience 
how he might justlie keepe and possesse 
the crowne of France, till he was persuad- 
ed and fullie instructed that Queen Isabel 
his grandmother was lineallie descended 
of the ladie Ermengard, daughter and 
heire to the above named Charles, duke of 
Lorraine, by the which marriage, the 
bloud and line of Charles the Great was 
againe united and restored to the crowne 
and scepter of France, so that more cleeare 
than the sun it opeulie appeareth that the 
title of King Pepin, the claim of Hugh 
Capet, the possession of Lewes, yea and 
the French kings to this daie, are derived 
and conveied from the heire female, 
though they would under the colour of 
such fained law, barre the kings and 
princes of this realme of England of their 
right and lawful inheritance." 



To prove that Shakespeare copied this from Holinshed, it 
may be noted that both Holinshed and Shakespeare put the 
time at 421 years, although both of them fix the dates from 
which they reckon thus : That King Pharamond died in 
426 and Charles the Great subdued the Saxon in 805, which 
makes but 379 years instead of 421. The error comes in 
subtracting the 5 in the 805 from the 26 in the 426, and then 
the 400 from the 800. And they both called St. Lewes, 
King Lewes the Tenth but in fact he was King Lewes the 
Ninth. Now the repetition of two such glaring errors 
shows beyond question that this passage was copied. 



2 4 

Senator Davis in commenting on this exposition of the 
law Salic says, "The arguments of the Archbishop that this 
law was not designed for France, is, in its order, reason and 
arrangements, thoroughly forensic and compact." 1 

Had Senator Davis ascertained who was the author of 
this forensic exposition by the Archbishop, he would have 
discovered that the quoted passages prove Holinshed rather 
than Shakespeare to be the lawyer. 

In Love's Labour Lost, in the conversation between Maria 
and Boyet, Boyet says : 

• l No sheep, sweet lamb, unless we feed on your lips. 
Maria. You feed and I pasture ; shall that finish the jest ? 

Boyet. So you grant pasture for me. (Offering to kiss her.) 

Maria. Not so, gentle beast. 

My lips are not common, though several they be." 

In 2 King Henry Sixth, Act i, Scene 3, Suffolk says : 
"What's here? (Reads) 'Gainst the 
Duke of Suffolk for enclosing the commons of Mel- 
ford ; 
How now, sir knave ? 
Petitioner. Alas, sir, I am but a poor petitioner of our whole 
township." 

It seems from the biographies of Shakespeare that he him- 
self had considerable to do with commons. Some of the 
local proprietors of Welcombe and Old Stratford proposed 
to enclose certain common pasture lands there, to which 
Shakespeare objected, and the corporation of Stratford also 
strongly objected, and sent their clerk, Mr. Thomas Green, 
to London about that business ; and Shakespeare saw the 
agent of the proprietors and went carefully into the details 
of their plan, and later pronounced strongly against the 



1 The Law in Sbakespeare. No. 144, Patre 1X4. 



25 

whole affair, and told the agent of the corporation that he 
"was not able to bear the enclosing of Welcombe Common." 
This subject must have been agitated a long time prior to 
this, and Shakespeare took such an interest in it that he un- 
doubtedly consulted lawyers regarding it; so that what was 
common and what was several was known to him from ex- 
perience, and it must be remembered that his boyhood life 
was spent in the vicinity of these Commons. 

The feudal system of England left certain lands in every 
community to be used in common by the peasantry, and the 
rights of the Lord of the Manor and of the Tenants to 
these Commons was a matter of common knowledge and 
frequent disputes, and therefore the fact that Shakespeare 
knew of these rights in common and of pasturage upon this 
common land is no argument to show that he had a legal 

training. 

In Troilus and Cressida, Pandarus, seeking to encourage 
Troilus and Cressida regarding their love, says : 

"Troilus, so rub on and kiss the mistress, 

How now, a kiss in fee farm ?" 

The definition for "fee farm" in the Law Dictionary of 
Shakespeare's time— Les Termes de la Ley— is, "Fee farm 
is when a tenant holds of his lord in fee simple, paying to 
him the value of half of the third, fourth, or other part of 
the land by the year." * 

Then what relation can this definition of fee farm have to 
a kiss ? In Shakespeare's time fee farm was a very common 
expression, for there was a great deal of land in England 
held in fee farm, and Shakespeare must have known of 
the term and its meaning, but that any lawyership is shown 

1 Page 220. 



26 

in applying it to a kiss is beyond comprehension. If it has 
any legal significance whatever, it must mean a kiss in per- 
petuity, or forever, then it would read : 

"How, now, a kiss forever." 

This would be rather a long kiss, or in other words, too 
much of a good thing. 

Lord Campbell cites, 1 as showing Shakespeare's special 
knowledge of the law of real estate, which knowledge he 
says is not generally possessed, Merrie Wives of Windsor, 
Act 2, Scene 2, where Falstaflf asks Ford : 

"Of what quality was your love, then? 
Ford. Like a fair house built on another man's ground ; 

So that I have lost my edifice by mistaking the place 

I erected it." 

And one writer on this subject says that, "Although the 
principle is one of great antiquity, it is so far technical that 
it is not familiar to unprofessional persons ;" 2 and cites, as 
an authority sustaining this view, the case of the First Par- 
ish in Sudbury vs. Jones, 3 as being a case where the town 
of Sudbury lost a schoolhouse by mistaking the ownership 
of the land where they erected it. Upon examination of 
this case, it will be found that that question was not in issue ; 
the question was whether the First Parish in Sudbury owned 
the land upon which the schoolhouse was built, for parochial 
purposes, or whether it was owned by the Town of Sudbury 
for general public purposes, and the Court held that it be- 
longed to the First Parish, and that it had impressed upon it 
in the grant a parochial character. The argument in the case 



1 Shakespeare's Lesral Acquirements 39. 

2 26 Law Reporter. 2. 

3 8 Cush. 184. 



27 

was all confined to that question. It is a matter of common 
knowledge, and had been long before Shakespeare's time, that 
he who built upon another man's land was a trespasser, and 
forfeited whatever structure he placed thereon without license, 
and it needed no legal training for a man of Shakespeare's 
ability to have found out by common observation that "A fair 
house built on another man's ground" could not be enjoyed 
by the party constructing it. 

In All's Well that Ends Well, Act 4, Scene 3, Parolles, 
when prisoner undergoing the examination by his captor, 
said in regard to Captain Dumain : 

"Sir, for a quart d'ecu he will sell the fee-simple of his salva- 
tion, the inheritance of it, and cut the entail from all remainders, 
and a perpetual succession for it perpetually." 

This is legal phraseology with a vengeance, and in solv- 
ing what Shakespeare means here one writer has said that a 
knowledge of law and law terms would be more of a hin- 
drance than a help. 

In Sonnet 46 is a description by the poet of a trial by jury 
between the heart and eye regarding the title to a fair lady : 

"My heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie 

(A closet never pierced with crystal eyes,) 

But the defendant doth that plea deny, 

And says in him thy fair appearance lies. 

To 'cite this title is impannelled 

A quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart ; 

And by their verdict is determined 

The clear eye's moiety, and the dear heart's part ; 

As thus : mine eye's clue is thine outward part, 

And my heart's right, thine inward love of heart." 

Lord Campbell says that this description of a lawsuit is 



28 

intensely legal in its language, 1 and that the poet could not 
be understood without a considerable knowledge of English 
forensic procedure, and that this sonnet smells as potently 
of the attorney's office as any of the stanzas penned by Lord 
Kenyon while an attorney's clerk in Wales. But this is less 
accurate than the description of the suit between the nose 
and eye given by Cowper. In this sonnet the plaintiff's dec- 
laration is called a plea. The cause is represented as a real 
action to try title. The plaintiff is not complaining of a 
disseisin, but insists in his declaration ("plea," as Shakes- 
peare calls it) that he already has what he sued for, while 
the defendant ("eye") claims title in himself, and also pos- 
session. But would a lawyer, even in poetry, suggest that 
the jury, to decide title to property, should be drawn from 
the tenants of the plaintiff ? 

"A quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart." 

This is an inaccuracy of expression, for in all real estate 
actions, the term tenant was the denomination of the defend- 
ant, and these tenants derived their title from, and were 
parties in interest with, the plaintiff. This would be a travesty 
on justice, and the verdict is, like some verdicts of justice 
juries, not relevant to the question in issue, for practically it 
makes partition of the lady the subject of dispute. Does the 
use of technical legal phraseology so misapplied do any- 
thing but disprove that Shakespeare was a lawyer? 

Lord Campbell cites twelve passages from the Sonnets 
in which he says Shakespeare has used legal language cor- 
rectly. One of them is : 

"And summer's lease hath all too short a date." 



1 Shakespeare's Legal Acquirements, 126. 



2 9 

The date of a lease is its beginning, and using this in its 
technical legal sense makes nonsense of the passage. 

I give all the other citations from the Sonnets made 
by Lord Campbell : 

"When to the sessions of sweet silent thought 

I summon up remembrance of things past." 

"So should that beauty which you hold in lease." 

"And 'gainst thyself a lawful plea commence." 

"But be contented ; when that fell arrest 

Without all bail shall carry me away." 

"Of faults concealed, wherein I am attainted." 

"Which works on leases of short numbered hours." 

"Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage 

Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit, 

To thee I send this written embassage." 

"And I myself am mortgag'd." 

"Why so large cost, having so short a lease?" 

"So should that beauty which you hold in lease, 

Find no determination." 

It required no legal knowledge to understand what session 
meant, or summon, lease, arrest, bail, attainted, or, in 
Shakespeare's day, vassalage. Certainly he had, through 
his father, a large experience with mortgaged property, and 
these are all the words found in the citations from the Son- 
nets that have any legal significance. 

In Merrie Wives of Windsor, Act 4, Scene 2, Mrs. Page 
says : 

"The spirit of wantonness is, sure, scared out of him; if the 
devil have him not in fee-simple, with fine and recovery, he will 
never, I think, in the way of waste, attempt us again." 



30 

And Hamlet's speech over the skull of a lawyer in 
Hamlet, Act 5, Scene 1 : 

"Where be his quiddets now, his quillets, his cases, his tenures, 
and his tricks? Why does he suffer this rude knave now to knock 
him about the sconce with a dirty shovel, and will not tell him of 
his action of battery? Hum ! This fellow might be in 's time a 
great buyer of land, with his statutes, his recognizances, his fines, 
his double vouchers, his recoveries ; is this the fine of his fines, 
and the recovery of his recoveries, to have his fine pate full of fine 
dirt? Will his vouchers vouch him no more of his purchases, and 
double ones too, than the length and breadth of a pair of inden- 
tures ?" 

is cited by many authors to show Shakespeare's knowledge 
of the law; but, so far as fine and recovery are concerned, 
and title in fee-simple, it would seem that Shakespeare's own 
experience would have been sufficient. A fine was levied 
in 1575 when his father bought property in Stratford : in 
1579, when he mortgaged his wife's estate ; in 1597, when 
Shakespeare bought New Place; in 1602, to cure a defect 
in the title to New Place ; and in 1610, when Shakespeare 
bought an estate of the Combes. He sealed and delivered 
an indenture in 1602 for his brother Gilbert ; and all these 
legal terms and phrases found in the above citations were 
commonly used by all writers contemporaneous with 
Shakespeare, by those who had and those who had not a 
technical knowledge of the law. 

As an illustration of the use of technical terms by the con- 
temporaneous writers of Shakespeare, I cite from Act 4, 
Scene 1, of All Fools, by George Chapman, published in 
1605: 

"I think it would be something tedious to read all, and there- 



fore, gentlemen, the sum is this : That you, Signor Cornelio, for 
divers and sundry weighty and mature considerations you espec- 
ially moving, specifying all the particulars of your wife's enormi- 
ties in a schedule hereunto annexed, the transcript whereof is in 
your tenure, custody, occupation and keeping ; that for these the 
aforesaid premises, I say, you renounce, disclaim and discharge 
Gazetta from being your leeful or your lawful wife ; and that you 
eftsoons, divide, disjoin, separate, remove, and finally eloigne, se- 
quester and divorce her from your bed and your board ; that you 
forbid her all access, repair, egress or regress to your person or 
persons, mansion or mansions, dwellings, habitations, remain- 
ences, or abodes, or to any shop, cellar, sollar, easements, cham- 
ber, dormer, and so forth, not in the tenure, custody, occupation 
or keeping of the said Cornelio ; notwithstanding all former con- 
tracts, covenants, bargains, conditions, agreements, compacts, 
promises, vows, affiances, assurances, bonds, bills, indentures, 
poll-deeds, deeds of gift, defeasances, feoffments, endowments, 
vouchers, double vouchers, privy entries, actions, declarations, 
explications, rejoinders, surrejoinders, rights, interests, demands, 
claims, or titles whatsoever, heretofore betwixt the one and the 
other party or parties being had, made, passed, covenanted and 
agreed, from the beginning of the world to the day of the date 
hereof. Given the seventeenth of November, fifteen hundred and 
so forth. Here, sir, you must set your hand." 

George Chapman was born in 1559, and died in 1634, 
was a poet and play-writer, and so far as anything is shown 
by his biography, never was connected with the legal pro- 
fession. If the string of legal terms given in the above cita- 
tion from Hamlet shows that it was the work of a lawyer, 
then this from Chapman must have been written by a past 
master in legal technicalities who could confound even 
Lord Coke himself. 

In Act 2, Scene 1, of As You Like It, Jaques in address- 



32 

ing the poor wounded deer, dropping his tears in the stream, 
says: 

" 'Poor deer,' quoth he, 'thou mak'st a testament 

As worldlings do 

Giving thy some of more 

To that which hath too much.' " 

" 'Ay,' quoth Jaques, 

'.Sweep on, you fat and greasy citizens ; 

'T is just the fashion ; wherefore do you look 

Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there ?' " 

It seems that here in the use of the word testament is 
shown great technical knowledge. This needs no comment, 
for any man of affairs could have used this word as 
well as Shakespeare, and any business man would know 
that worldlings are more apt to give their property to those 
who have more than they need than to those who need it. 

A few dates will show Shakespeare's acquaintance with 
the word bankrupt as used here. His own father had be- 
come bankrupt at Stratford ; in 1579 he had been warned 
and ceased to attend the market ; in 1586 he lost his position 
as alderman ; in 1592 it is stated that he "comme not to 
churche for feare of a process for debt." So that Shakes- 
peare had a special familiarity with what constituted bank- 
rupts, and the way they were looked upon by "fat and 
greasy citizens." 

Shakespeare gets the "Crowner's quest law" which he 
uses in the argument between the two clowns in the grave 
diggers' scene in Hamlet, from a case reported in Plowden, 
Hales v. Petit. This case, by reason of the fine spun theo- 
ries of the lawyers, and the distinction without differences 
drawn by the Court in its opinion, created a great deal ot 



33 

discussion in Shakespeare's day, and was the subject of 
considerable ridicule. This must have come to Shakes- 
peare's attention, as it is evident his attention covered all 
matters of public interest. 

The passage from The Taming of the Shrew, Induction 
Scene 2, where the servant says to Sly : 

"Yet would you say ye were beaten out of door, 

And rail upon the hostess of the house, 

And say you would present her at the leet, 

Because she brought stone jugs and no seal'd quarts," 

has been cited by Lord Campbell 1 to show Shakespeare's 
intimate knowledge of such matters. Now, it seems to me, 
from what I can gather from the biographies of that great 
poet, that that would be just the kind of law he would natu- 
rally be familiar with. That there was a statute during 
Elizabeth's and James' reigns providing that ale should be 
sold only in sealed vessels of standard capacity, and that vi- 
olations of this law were to be prosecuted in court leet, 
would be a matter of common knowledge. If not a matter 
of common knowledge, of what benefit would it be to the 
public? Shakespeare, undoubtedly, was well versed in all 
laws which pertained to stone jugs and sealed quarts, but if 
that proves him a member of the legal fraternity, I throw up 

my brief. 

The scene from All's Well that Ends Well, where the 
King of France compels Bertram to marry Helena as a re- 
ward for having healed his fistula, is cited by Lord Camp- 
bell 2 as proof that Shakespeare had an accurate knowledge 
of the law in England respecting the incidents of military 



1 Shakespeare's Legal Acquirements, 63. 

2 Shakespeare's Legal Acquirements, 67. 



34 

tenure or tenure in chivalry. The incidents of that tenure 
are dwelt upon in this scene, with wardship of minors, and 
the right of the guardian to dispose of the minor in marriage 
at his pleasure. This law was in full force in the reign of 
Elizabeth (and Campbell refers to Littleton to prove this), 
but Littleton says that the guardian may not disparage the 
ward by a misalliance ; and Helena not being of noble de- 
scent, it was beyond the power of the king to compel Ber- 
tram to marry her ; and of this Shakespeare seems to have 
been blissfully ignorant. Had he been a lawyer, he would 
not have made this blunder. 

In The Taming of the Shrew, Act i, Scene 2, Tranio 
says : 

"And do as adversaries do in law, 

Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends." 

This evidently refers to the barristers in the case, and not 
to the parties, but it does not prove that Shakespeare must 
have been a lawyer himself in order to have known it. He 
associated with lawyers, and undoubtedly had seen them in 
forensic heat, and then afterwards dined with them in 
Alsatia. 

In Othello, Iago observes : 

"Faith, he to-night hath boarded a land carack : 
If it prove lawful prize, he's made forever." 

I hardly see how this goes to prove that Shakespeare was 
a common law lawyer, because a "prize" was a matter 
purely within the jurisdiction of Admiralty, and Proctors, 
or men versed in civil law, practiced in that Court, and 
there was nothing in the common law from which Shakes- 
peare could have learned anything regarding "lawful 
prizes." 



35 

Lord Campbell says that in Julius Caesar he cannot find 
a single instance of a Roman being made to talk like an 
English lawyer, * but Antony in the funeral oration says : 

"But here's a parchment, with the seal of Caesar; 

I found it in his closet ; 't is his will, 

Let but the commons hear this testament, " 

Here is as much technical law as is shown in the deer's 
testament in As You Like It, which Lord Campbell thinks 
proves his lawyership. Further on, he says : 

"Moreover, he hath left you all his walks, 
His private arbours, and new-planted orchards, 
On this side Tiber ; he hath left them you, 
And to your heirs forever, common pleasures, 
To walk abroad, and recreate yourselves." 

I am willing to concede that this is not the talk of a law- 
yer, and, therefore, perhaps should agree with the dis- 
tinguished chancellor in that respect, but it is as much the 
talk of a lawyer as many passages which he cites. When 
he says : 

"He hath left them you, 
And to your heirs forever," 

it is unnecessary and not legally accurate, because in order 
to give the public a perpetual right in real estate, heirs 
should not be mentioned. 

Shakespeare has given us the historical play King 
John, but in it no mention is made of that great charter of 
English liberties forced from King John at Runnymede on 
that glorious 15th day of June, 1215, and nowhere in that 
play is Magna Charta mentioned, nor is it in any of the 



1 Shakespeare's Legal Acquirements, 117. 



36 

works that Shakespeare wrote. Can we conceive that a 
man trained to the law would have written King John 
and not have mentioned Magna Charta? If Sir Francis 
Bacon, as some claim, had been the author of this play, do 
any of you gentlemen imagine for a moment that this great 
charter of English liberty would have been ignored? This 
omission is enough to show both the absurdity of the 
Baconian theory and the fact that Shakespeare was not a 
lawyer. 

The Mecca of all the disciples of Shakespeare's lawyer- 
ship is The Merchant of Venice, and there they find indis- 
putable evidences that end, with many of them, the discus- 
sion of this great question. 

The gist of the judgment in Shylock v. Antonio was that 
the bond for a pound of flesh was a valid instrument, and 
gave the plaintiff a right to exact the forfeiture ; yet, if he 
exacted the forfeiture, he was guilty of murder. Assuredly, 
this was not the common law, for by that law the condition 
was void whether it exacted a penalty or commanded an act 
involving a crime. 

Portia came to assist the Duke, who was the presiding 
justice in his own court, and she held that by the law of 
Venice, 

"Why, this bond is forfeit; 
And lawfully by this the Jew may claim 
A pound of flesh, to be by him cut off 
Nearest the merchant's heart." 

and says : 

"For the intent and purpose of the law 

Hath full relation to the penalty, 

Which here appeareth due upon the bond." 



37 

Further on : 

"A pound of that same merchant's flesh is thine ; 
The court awards it and the law doth give it." 

And again : 

"And you must cut this flesh from off his breast; 
The law allows it, and the court awards it." 

Therefore, b) T this decision this bond was held to be a 
valid and a subsisting obligation. It is now, and ever has 
been, under the English Common Law. a principle that 
where the law grants something it also grants that without 
which the grant cannot be. It would be an idle grant to 
sell a man a ton of hay in your barn and then not allow him 
to come on your premises to get the hay. This is not, and 
never was, the law. Every grant carries with it such a col- 
lateral right as will make its services effectual. The excel- 
lent and wise expounder of the law, who, with the learned 
Doctor Bellario, had "turned over many books" in looking 
up and satisfying herself of the law of the case, and who 
was also furnished with Bellario's opinion, after taking her 
seat upon the judge's bench, had said to the plaintiff 
Shylock : 

"Of a strange nature is the suit you follow. 
Yet in such rule that the Venetian law 
Cannot impugn you as you do proceed. — " 

The bond in this case had been duly executed and de- 
livered, and was conditioned for the payment of a certain 
sum of money at a certain time and place therein stated, 
and upon the failure of Antonio to comply with the condi- 
tions of the bond, he was to forfeit to Shylock a pound of 
flesh to be cut off and taken from the body of Antonio by 
Shylock. 



38 

And then after this adjudication that the bond was per- 
fectly valid, this learned doctor of the law says, contrary to 
every principle of natural justice and English Common 
Law, 

"This bond doth give thee here no jot of blood ; 

The words expressly are a pound of flesh : 

Take then thy bond, take thou thy pound of flesh ; 

But, in the cutting of it, if thou dost shed 

One drop of Christian blood, thy lands and goods 

Are, by the laws of Venice, confiscated 

Unto the state of Venice." 

And when Shylock, amazed at this kind of justice, as well he 
might be, asks Portia, "Is that the law?" She answers : 
"Thyself shall see the act ; 
For, as thou urgest justice, be assur'd 
Thou shalt have justice, more than thou desirest." 

Then she says : 

"Therefore, prepare thee to cut off the flesh. 

Shed thou no blood ; nor cut thou less nor more 

But just a pound of flesh : if thou tak'st more 

Or less than just a pound, be it but so much 

As makes it light or heavy in the substance, 

Or the division of the twentieth part 

Of one poor scruple — nay, if the scale do turn 

But in the estimation of a hair, 

Thou diest, and all thy goods are confiscate." 

And when the Jew says : 

"Give me my principal and let me go," 

that too is refused him by this immaculate justice, who says : 
"He hath refus'd it in open court; 
He shall have merely justice, and his bond." 



39 

This is strange law, that because a creditor has refused a 
tender, he forfeits all right to his debt. 
And then the Jew says : 

"Shall I have not barely my principal?" 

Again, Justice, who is blind, says : 

"Thou shall have nothing but the forfeiture, 
To be so taken at thy peril, Jew," 

And then Shylock, disgusted with these sharp "quiddits" of 
the law, says : 

"Why, then the devil give him good of it ! 
I'll stay no longer question." 

Then he is pulled up by the halter and informed that that 
immaculate law "hath yet another hold on you." Then she 
proceeds to strip the Jew of all his goods and chattels, be- 
cause he has entered into an attempt against the life of a 
citizen, by taking a bond, which is held by the court to be 
perfectly legal, and which he is merely asking the court to 
enforce. 

The bond in this case, according to the common law in 
England in Shakespeare's time, as well as in ours, was ab- 
solutely void, because to compel an enforcement of such a 
condition, would be contrary to public policy and public 
morals. There could be no decree founded upon it, nor no 
action maintained upon it. It was simply a "piece of waste 
paper," and in a suit upon that bond the court would award 
no penalty, as the law would give none. 

Imagine a lawver writing down such nonsense as that and 
calling it law. The only saving clause therein for Shakes- 
peare's legal acumen is that he put this law into the mouth 
of a woman, and not in that of a man. 



4° 

In Act 2, Scene 3, of Cymbeline, he says: 

"I will make 
One of her women lawyer to me, for 
I yet not understand the case myself." 

Possibly that was Shakespeare's reason for having Portia 
decide this case. 

At the end of this wonderful exhibition of lawyership, 
this court of law, then at once turned into a court of Chan- 
cery, a shifting of ■jurisdiction that was not then known in 
jurisprudence, ordered Shylock to make a deed of gift of all 
he dies possessed, which, of course, would include all after 
acquired property, both real and personal, and such a deed 
as this would not, and could not, convey any interest in 
after acquired property, either real or personal, under the 
civil law, which was the law in force in Venice. It would 
have no effect under the common law, unless the deed of 
gift was construed to be a will, but this could not be, be- 
cause by the terms of this decree, the deed was to be re- 
corded in court, and the consideration being expressed 
therein, would show that it was not his will, because it was 
done upon compulsion, and certainly it would be liable to 
be set aside for undue influence. 

By some of the advocates of the lawyer theory of Shakes- 
peare it has been intimated that the law of Venice might 
have been as held by Portia in this case. If that be true, 
this does not prove that Shakespeare had knowledge 
of the common law, but this is not true, for it was a maxim 
of the civil law, ex turfie causa non oritur actio. 

One author has seen the absurdity of this deed of gift, x and 
has suggested that it might be good as a gift causa mortis y 



1 Davist the Law in Shakespeare No. 56. 



4 1 

or as a will under the civil law, but Cooper's "Justinian,'' 
Lib. 2, Tit. 12, shows this was impossible, as it would not 
have one element necessary for the validity of a will. This 
was not Shylock's voluntary act, but was done upon com- 
pulsion when he was under the power or control of others, 
and the fact that it was done upon compulsion must have 
appeared in the instrument itself. 
In Act i, Scene 3, Shylock says : 

"Go with me to a notary ; seal me there 

Your single bond ; and, in a merry spoi-t, 

If you repay me not on such a day, 

In such a place, such sum or sums as are 

Express'd in the condition, let the forfeit 

Be nominated for an equal pound 

Of your fair flesh, to be cut off and taken 

In what part of your body pleaseth me." 

A single bond, simplex obligata, according to all legal 
definition, is a bond without any condition collateral to the 
bond, but the bond which Shylock described had such a 
collateral condition. In Shakespeare's day almost all con- 
tracts were bonds ; that is, they were under seal. This has 
been changed through the enlarging of the law merchant, 
so that to-day but few instruments, except bonds with col- 
lateral conditions, and contracts regarding real estate, are 
sealed. But, in Shakespeare's day, single bonds were the 
common, ordinary contracts of the day, and any lawyer of 
that day, or anybody who had spent two weeks in a law of- 
fice, ought to have known the difference between a single 
bond, such as Shylock says they will go to a notary and 
seal, and a bond with a collateral condition, such a bond as 
he was asking for and described. 



4 2 

Many of those who advocate the theory that Shakespeare 
was a lawyer cite what Shylock says in Act 4, Scene 1 : 

"I have possess'd your grace of what I purpose; 

And by holy Sabbath have I sworn 

To have the due and forfeit of my bond. 

If you deny it, let the danger light 

Upon your charter and your city's freedom." 

Lord Campbell, very discreetly, does not cite this as any 
evidence of Shakespeare's legal knowledge. Venice was an 
independent sovereign state, and did not receive its charter 
from some higher power like a municipality in Shakes- 
peare's England, and was not in danger of losing its muni- 
cipal rights given by way of charter. A lawyer would not 
have made this blunder. 

If Shakespeare was a lawyer, it would appear that he had 
a very poor opinion of his own profession from what he says 
in several of the plays regarding lawyers. 

In The Merchant of Venice, Act 3, Scene 2, Bassanio 
says : 

"In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt 
But, being season'd with a gracious voice, 
Obscures the show of evil ?" 

In 2 Henry Sixth, Act 4, Scene 2, Dick says to Cade : 
"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers." 

In King Lear, Act 1, Scene 4 : 

"Kent. This is nothing, fool. 

Fool. Then 't is like the breath of an unfee'd lawyer ; you 

gave me nothing for 't. — Can you make no use of noth- 
ing, nuncle?" 



43 

2 Henry Sixth, Act 4, Scene 4 : 

"All scholars, lawyers, courtiers, gentlemen, 
They call false caterpillars," 
Timon of Athens, Act 4, Scene 3, Timon says : 
"Crack the lawyer's voice ; 
That he may never more false title plead, 
Nor sound his quillets shrilly :" 
As You Like It, Act 3, Scene 2, Rosalind says : 
"With lawyers in the vacation; for they sleep between term 
and term, and then they perceive not how time moves." 
Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, Scene 4 : 

Fairy Mab gallops 

"O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees. 

As You Like It, Act 4. Scene 1 : 

"I have neither the scholar's melancholy, which is emulation ; 
nor the musician's, which is fantastical; nor the courtier's, which 
is proud ; nor the soldier's which is ambitious ; nor the lawyer s, 
which is politic." 

In Measure for Measure, Aet i, Scene 2, the clown in 
comforting the old lady, who had kept a house of .11 fame m 
the suburbs of the city, when she was in despatr by the pro- 
clamation commanding that all such houses be plucked 

down, says: 

"Come, fear not you ; good counsellors lack no clients. 

Lord Campbell says that this comparison is not very flat- 
tering to the bar, but it seems to show a familiarity with 
both the professions alluded to. So here is another special 
trade or avocation that Shakespeare is accused of having 
more than ordinary knowledge of. 



44 

He has not a very high opinion of the way law is ad- 
ministered, which may have come from his father's ex- 
perience with courts; but lawyers are not apt to have the 
opinion that Shakespeare expresses in regard to the admin- 
istration of justice. 

In Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 3, the King in his soliloquy 
says : 

"In the corrupted currents of this world 
Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice, 
And oft 't is seen the wicked prize itself 
Buys out the law ; but 't is not so above : 
There is no shuffling, there the action lies 
In his true nature, and we ourselves compell'd 
Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults 
To give in evidence." 

King Lear, Act 4, Scene 6: 

"Plate sin with gold, 
And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks ; 
Arm it in rags, a pigmy's straw does pierce it." 

Again, in Cymbeline, Act 2, Scene 3 : 

"And 't is gold 
Which makes the true man kill'd, and saves the thief." 

Pericles, Prince of Tyre, Act 2, Scene 1 : 

"Help, master, help ! here's a fish hangs in the net, like a poor 
man's right in the law ; 't will hardly come out." 

Measure for Measure, Act 5, Scene 1 : 
"Laws for all faults 
But faults so countenanced that the strong 

statutes 
Stand like the forfeits in the barber's shop 
As much in mock as mark." 



45 

But "the unkindest cut of all" is where King Lear, Act 
3, Scene 6, says : 

"I'll see their trial first. — Bring in their evidence. — 
(To Edgar) : Thou robed man of justice, take thy place, — 
(To the fool) : And thou, his yoke-fellow of equity, 
Bench by his side." 

This may have been prophetic of the union of law and 
equity, and some such union of jurisdiction has been in- 
troduced in modern times, but it was not very complimen- 
tary to make Mad Tom his Chief Justice, and the fool his 
Chancellor. Shakespeare also gives some wholesome ad- 
vice to litigants. This was probably the result of the ex- 
perience which his father had had. 

Measure for Measure, Act 2, Scene i : 

"We must not make a scarecrow of the law 

Setting it to fear the birds of prey 

And let it keep one shape until custom make it 

Their perch, and not their terror." 

Timon of Athens, Act 3, Scene 5 : 
"The law is past depth 
To those that without heed do plunge into it." 

Twelfth Night, Act 3, Scene 4 : 

"Still you keep o' the windy side of the law : good." 

What Jack Cade says to Dick seems to be a resulting con- 
clusion from Shakespeare's experience with his father's 
mortgages : 

"Is not this a lamentable thing, that of the skin of an innocent 
lamb should be made parchment? that parchment, being scrib- 
bled o'er, should undo a man? Some say the bee stings; but I 
say 't is the bee's wax, for I did but seal once to a thing, and I 
was never mine own man since." 



4 6 

Shakespeare gives his opinion of the jury as shown by 
what Angelo says in Measure for Measure, Act 2, Scene 1 : 

"I do not deny, 
The jury passing on the prisoner's life, 
May in the sworn twelve have a thief or two 
Guiltier than him they try. What's open to justice, 
That justice seizes ; what knows the law 
That thieves do pass on thieves?" 

King Henry Eighth, Act 5, Scene 1 : 

"And not ever 
The justice and the truth o' the question carries 
The due o' the verdict with it." 

When Shakespeare gives us a description of Justice Shal- 
low and his proceedings it is such a faithful description of a 
country justice that it can be confined to no age or country, 
and it is frequently realized in our justice courts here. This 
description and the other pointed allusions to these petit 
magistrates have been attributed to Shakespeare's own ex- 
perience with Sir William Lucy; and if this were true, the 
following from King Lear, Act 4, Scene 6, would seem to 
be in accordance with the saying, "No rogue e'er felt the 
halter draw with good opinion of the law :" 

"What, art mad? A man may see how this world goes with 
no eyes. Look with thine ears ; see how yond justice rails upon 
yond simple thief. Hark, in thine ear : change places, and, 
handy-handy, which is the justice, which is the thief?" 

Also, 2 Henry Sixth, Act 4, Scene 7 : 

"Thou hast appointed justices of the peace, to call poor men 
before them about matters they were not able to answer." 

But his description of a justice law suit, put into the 
mouth of Coriolanus, will be recognized by many of my 



47 

brother members of the Bar, who have had the pleasure of 
practicing in these justice courts, and laymen have seen 
enough to know that such courts are not usually presided 
over by men of deep and erudite judicial minds : 

In Coriolanus, Act 2, Scene 1, Menenius, in addressing 
the tribunes, whom Shakespeare it seems mistook for mag- 
istrates, says : 

"You are ambitious for poor knaves' caps and legs; you wear 
out a good wholesome forenoon in hearing a cause between an 
orangewife and a fosset-seller, and then rejourn the controversy of 
three-pence to a second day of audience. When you are hearing 
a matter between party and party, if you chance to be pinched 
with the colic, you make faces like mummers, set up the bloody 
flag against all patience, and dismiss the controversy bleeding, the 
more entangled by your hearing ; all the peace you make in their 
cause is, calling both the parties knaves." 

The description of the person of a justice of the peace in- 
dicates familiarity with that class of citizens, in Henry 
Fifth, Act 1, Scene 2 : 

"The sad-eyed justice with the surly hum." 

And in As You Like It, Act 2, Scene 7 : 
"And then the justice, 
In fair round belly with good capon lin'd, 
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut, 
Full of wise saws and modern instances." 

As a further illustration of Shakespeare's knowledge of 
law as well as his prophetic genius, I cite from The Mer- 
chant of Venice. Act 3, Scene 5 : 

"This making of christians will raise the price of hogs; if we 
grow all to be pork eaters, we shall not shortly have a rasher on 
the coals for money." 



4 8 

So it seems that Shakespeare saw as in a vision the meat 
trusts that are now plaguing this generation ; and Jessica, 
in the same scene, replying to Lorenzo, says : 

"Nay, you need not fear us, Lorenzo, Launcelot and I are out. 
He tells me flatly, there is no mercy for me in heaven because I 
am a Jew's daughter ; and he says you are no good member of the 
Commonwealth, for in converting Jews to christians you raise the 
price of pork." 

Is perhaps as good an illustration of his lawyership as 
many that are quoted to sustain it, because he evidently un- 
derstood that it was contrary to public policy to enter into 
combinations to raise the price of food, a principle of the 
common law not so well understood in this day as it was in 
Shakespeare's. 

As another incident of his prophetic knowledge, I quote 
from King Lear, Act 2, Scene 1 : 

"All ports I'll bar ; the villain shall not 'scape : 
The Duke must grant me that. Besides, his picture 
I will send far and near, that all the kingdom 
May have note of him." 

This is said to be another incident of the law knowledge 
of Shakespeare; and Lord Campbell says: "One would 
suppose that photography, by which this mode of catching 
criminals is now practiced, had been invented in the reign 
of King Lear." 

Lord Campbell, who in his Lives of the Chief Justices of 
England, l says : "He, (Shakespeare), is uniformly right 
in his law and in his use of legal phraseology, which no 
mere quickness of intuition can account for," and who has 
culled 160 citations to prove that Shakespeare was a lawyer, 



1 Lives of Chief Justices, 213. Note 2. 



49 

has failed 1o convince himself even, and near the close of 
his argument says : "We cannot argue with confidence on 
the principles, which would guide us to safe conclusions re- 
specting ordinary men, when we are reasoning respecting 
one of whom it was truly said : 

'Each change of many-coloured life he drew, 
Exhausted worlds, and then imagined new ; 
Existence saw him spurn her bounded reign, 
And panting Time toiled after him in vain." 

His opinion reminds one forcibly of that of the worthy 
Mrs. Partington, who when asked, "Are you in favor of the 
prohibitic laws, or the license laws?" said "Sometimes I 
think I am, and then again I think I am not." 

And he says that in charging a jury on the issue of 
whether William Shakespeare ever was a clerk in an at- 
torney's office : 

"I ' should hold that there is evidence to go to the jury in 
support of the affirmative, and I should tell the twelve gentle- 
men in the box that it is a case entirely for their decision,— 
without venturing even to hint to them, for their guidance, 
any opinion of my own." He further says should they 
agree in a verdict either way, he could not properly set it 
aside and grant a new trial, but that, in all probability, 
after they had been some hours in deliberation, he would 
find that there was no chance of their agreeing, and that 
after he had locked them up for the night, and kept them 
all night without eating or drinking, and "without fire, 
candle-light excepted," they would come into court next 
morning still saying, "we cannot agree." In re-charging 
the jury he says he would not hesitate to tell them that there 



1 Shakespeare's Legal Acquirements, 9. 



5o 

had been a great deal of misrepresentation and delusion as 
to Shakespeare's opportunities when a youth of acquiring 
knowledge, and as to the knowledge he had acquired. 

Cushman K. Davis, who wrote a work of over three hun- 
dred pages to show that Shakespeare was a lawyer, makes 
the following argument : 

"Shakespeare had a lawyer's conservatism. He re- 
spected the established order of things. He chisels the re- 
publican Brutus in cold and marble beauty, but paints with 
beams of sunlight the greatness, bravery, and generosity of 
imperial Caesar. Coriolanus is the impersonation of pa- 
trician contempt for popular rights. Shakespeare passes 
unnoticed the causes which led to Cade's insurrection, be- 
cause he cares not for them, — causes so just that honorable 
terms were exacted by the insurgents. His portrait of Joan 
of Arc, the virgin mother of French nationality, who raised 
it to glory because the people believed in her, is a great of- 
fence. There is nowhere a hint of sympathy with personal 
rights as against the sovereign, nor with parliament, then 
first assuming its protective attitude towards the English 
people." 1 

This is a very specious argument to prove Shakespeare a 
lawyer. The history of the Bar, from early times until 
now, negates this conclusion. Lord Coke resisted the pre- 
rogative of the crown. He upheld the chartered rights of 
Englishmen, and maintained the equality of men in law, 
and he was one of the greatest lawyers that ever lived, and 
was living in Shakespeare's time. 

History shows that the Bar has always stood for liberty r 
the rights of the people, and the oppressed. They have 



1 The Law in Shakespeare, 34. 



5i 

been foremost in reforms and revolutions, and it is one of the 
strongest arguments to show that Shakespeare was not a 
lawyer, and never had a legal training, nor the broadening 
of the mind which a legal training gives, that he did show 
acquiescence in the established order of things, and that he 
made no mention of the rights of Englishmen under their 
great charter. 

But the law is not the only special science that has been 
attributed to Shakespeare. The bibliography of Shakes- 
peare shows that many treatises have been written to show 
his special knowledge in various other arts and sciences. 

In the Tempest, the last of his works, Act i, Scene i, is 
given a description of a ship at sea during a severe gale, the 
commands given by the officers, and the resulting action of 
the ship. 

Lord Mulgrave, a distinguished naval officer, says in re- 
gard to this scene: "The first scene of the Tempest is a 
very striking instance of the great accuracy of Shakes- 
peare's knowledge in a professional science, the most diffi- 
cult to attain without the help of experience." 

Captain E. K. Calver, H. B. R. N., has written an ex- 
haustive article upon Shakespeare's seamanship and knowl- 
edge of nautical matters, and says that Shakespeare displays 
a great knowledge in regard to those matters. 

In part 2, of King Henry Fourth, in the famous soliloquy, 
the King says : 

"O thou dull god, why liest thou with the vile 
In loathsome beds, and leav'st the kingly couch 
A watch-case or a common larum-bell? 
Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast 
Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains 
In cradle of the rude imperious surge 



52 

And in the visitation of the winds, 
Who take the ruffian billows by the top, 
Curling their monstrous heads and hanging them 
With deafening clamour in the slippery clouds, 
That with the hurly death itself awakes ? 
Canst thou, O partial sleep, give thy repose 
To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude, 
And in the calmest and most stillest night, 
With all appliances and means to boot, 
Deny it to a king? Then, happy low, lie down ! 
Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown." 

As You Like It, Act 2, Scene 7 : 

"Which is as dry as the remainder biscuit 
After a voyage." 

He makes references to these same matters in 532 dif- 
ferent places in his works, and at all times, so it is said by 
those who claim to know, he uses nautical terms correctly, 
and so it is claimed that he showed such an intimate knowl- 
edge of seamanship, of the action of the ocean, and of 
nautical terms and phrases, that he must have spent a part 
of his life on the ocean. 

Many writers have labored to show that he must have 
been by trade a gardener from the conversation between 
Perdita, Polixenes and Florizel, in The Winter's Tale, Act 
4, Scene 4, where they discuss learnedly about carnations, 
gilliflower, and skillful grafting of fruit trees. Some of the 
writers who have taken up this subject cite very many pas- 
sages throughout his works, some of them among the most 
beautiful that he ever wrote, to show his intimate knowledge 
of plants and gardening, and his great affection for flowers. 
Numberless allusions to flowers and their culture are found 
in almost every play he wrote, and in almost every act and 



53 

every scene. His descriptions are never laboured but each 
passage seems to be a natural outcome of a keen and appre- 
ciative eye joined with a great power and command of the 
fittest language. 

Other writers claim that he shows great knowledge in 
ornithology, zoology, and natural history, and there are 
many references in his works to these subjects, and he is 
always, as I understand it, absolutely accurate in such mat- 
ters. It is said by Knight that "He was a naturalist in the 
very best sense of the word." In parttof King Henry 
Fourth, his description of the cuckoo is said to be correct 
and directly contrary to the accepted theory of his day. 

But in the science of medicine Shakespeare has, so his 
medical commentators claim, shown greater technical knowl- 
edge than many of them think it was possible for him to 
have acquired in any other way than by a special training in 
the mysteries and sciences of that art. 

One writer, B. Rush Field, quotes and comments on 475 
passages from Shakespeare, covering the subject of the 
practice of medicine, surgery, obstetrics, physiology, an- 
atomy and pharmacy. Of course it is impossible to cite in 
this paper these, and many other passages in Shakespeare 
that refer to that subject, but my argument does not require 
that I prove Shakespeare to have been a doctor of medicine, 
but only that I show his almost universal knowledge upon 
all subjects, and his familiarity with the terms, phrases, and 
conditions peculiar to such subjects as tending to establish the 
proposition that instead of a special training in any of these 
arts and sciences, it was his great genius for adaptation that 
brought forth such fruits from all of them. 

His description of apoplexy, as portrayed in 2 Henry 



54 

Fourth, in the famous interview between Chief Justice 
Gascoigne and Falstaff is particularly referred to. 

Nervous diseases, and all other kinds of diseases are fre- 
quently referred to by him. His delineations of insanity in 
King Lear and Hamlet have received the commendation of 
distinguished alienists, who sa} r they can diagnose the exact 
disease from the facts Shakespeare describes. He pays 
the highest compliment to members of the medical profes- 
sion. He seems to have discovered the circulation of the 
blood before Harvey published his works, and this is 
shown in : 

Romeo and Juliet, Act 3, Scene 1 ; 

Julius Caesar, Act 2, Scene 1 : 

Measure for Measure, Act 2, Scene 4 ; 

Coriolanus, Act 1, Scene 1 : 

2 Henry Fourth, Act 5, Scene 2 ; 

Macbeth, Act 2, Scene 2 ; 

Lucrece. 

Even the science of osteopathy, a school of very recent 
foundation, seems not to have escaped his notice, because he 
says in Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 3 : 

"Throw physic to the dogs ; I'll none of it." 

And in the Tempest, Act 2, Scene 1 : 

"you rub the sore 
When you should bring the plaster." 

In Act 2, Scene 1 of Coriolanus, Menenius says: 
"A letter for me ! it gives me an estate of seven years' health, 
in which time I will make a lip at the physician ; the most sov- 
ereign prescription in Galen is but empirictic, and, to this pre- 
servative, of no better report than a horse-drench." 

It would seem that he must have been acquainted with, 



55 

and read the works of that -Wonder Speaker" and "Won- 
der Worker" Galen, or Claudius Galenus, the most cele- 
brated medical writer of ancient times, and is not this a key 
which unlocks the mystery as to where Shakespeare ob- 
tained all his special technical knowledge? He went to its 
source and took it from the fountain head. 

Even similia similibns curantur, the maxim of the 
homeopathic school, seems not to have escaped his notice as 
shown in 2 Henry Fourth, Act i, Scene i. 
And in King John, Act 3, Scene 1 : 

"And falsehood falsehood cures, as fire cools fire 
Within the scorched veins of one new-burned." 
Coriolanus, Act 4, Scene 7 : 

"One fire drives out one fire ; one nail, one nail ;" 

Romeo and Juliet, Act 1 , Scene 2 : 

Even the Thompsonian theory was apparently known to 
him, for he alludes to it in The Merchant of Venice, Act 5, 
Scene 1, and in Hamlet, Act 4, Scene 7. 

The euroscopists are not torgotten by Shakespeare, as is 

shown in 

Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 3 ; 
Twelfth Night, Act 3, Scene 4 ; 

2 Henry Fourth, Act 1, Scene 2. _ 

He evidently understood contagious diseases, tor in 
Henry Eighth, Act 1, Scene 3, he says : 

» 't is time to give 'em physic, their diseases 
Are growing so catching." 
That he understood the crisis or turning point of diseases 
is evident : King John , Act 3 , Scene 4 : 
"Before the curing of a strong disease, 
Even in the instant of repair and health, 



56 

The fit is strongest ; evils that take leave, 
On their departure most of all show evil." 

He seems also to have understood what doctors now call 
the heroic treatment, for in Hamlet, Act 4, Scene 3, he 
says : 

"diseases desperate grown 
By desperate appliances are reliev'd, 
Or not at all." 

Vivisection is also alluded to, in Act 1, Scene 5 of Cym- 
beline : 

"Which first, perchance, she'll prove on cats and dogs, 
Then afterwards up higher:" 

How accurately he described the signs which indicate 
death in Henry Fifth, Act 2, Scene 3 : 

" 'A made a finer end, and went away, an it had been am 
christom child : 'a parted even just between twelve and one, even 
at the turning of the tide ; for after I saw him fumble with the 
sheets, and pint with flowers, and smile upon his finger's ends, I 
knew there was but one way ; for his nose was as sharp as a pen 
and 'a babbled of green fields. * * * * 'A bade me lay 
more clothes on his feet: I put my hand into the bed and felt 
them, and they were as cold as any stones ; then I felt to his knees, 
and so upwards, and upwards, and all was as cold as any stone." 

And in 2 Henry Sixth, Act 3, Scene 2, the description of 
the death of Duke Humphrey has been commented on by 
Bell in his Principles of Surgery, and says that this "must 
be regarded as a perfect description of approaching dis- 
solution." 

The same thing is noticed in Henry Eighth, Act 4, 
Scene 2. 

Shakespeare also shows a great knowledge of drugs and 



57 

poisons and their actions. For instance he likens the action 
of aconite to rash gunpowder in 2 Henry Fourth, Act 4, 
Scene 4. See also : 

Antony and Cleopatra, Act 1, Scene 5. 

Othello, Act 3, Scene 3. 

The stimulative medical properties of alcohol were known 
to Shakespeare : 

Winter's Tale, Act 4, Scene 4 ; 

Comedy of Errors, Act 4, Scene 4 ; 

Twelfth Night, Act 2, Scene 5 ; 

Romeo and Juliet, Act 3, Scene 2 ; 

Macbeth, Act 1, Scene 3 ; 

Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 3 ; 

Othello, Act 2, Scene 1. 

Some of the theologians have insisted that Shakespeare 
had made a great study of the Bible and of divinity, but as 
I have never seen the following quotation cited as tending 
to prove his knowledge of theology, I conclude it must have 
escaped the attention of his theological commentators : 

As You Like It : 

"Touchstone: * * * * Was't ever in court, shepherd? 

Covin: No, truly. 

Touchstone : Then thou art damned. 

Corin : Nay, I hope,— 

Touchstone : Truly, thou art damned, like an ill-roasted egg: 
all on one side. 

Corin : For not being at court? Your reason. 

Touchstone : Why, if thou never was't at court, thou never 
saw'st good mariners ; if thou never saw'st good 
manners, then thy manners must be wicked ; and 
wickedness is sin, and sin is damnation. Thou 
art in a parlous state, shepherd." 



58 

In Shakespeare's day the word "manners" was equiva- 
lent to morals, and is evidently so used in this passage. 

Now, is it more probable that Shakespeare could fully 
describe the insanity of Hamlet and Lear, could delineate 
its symptoms and conditions so faithfully and accurately 
that the experts of today can from his description diagnose 
the disease and its results as well as from an actual case, 
that he could express himself in the technical language of 
medicine precisely and accurately, could describe many 
diseases as well as a physician, and give the effects of 
potent drugs, and this too without any special experience or 
training, than that he could use, as he many times did, legal 
words and phrases accurately without having had a legal 
training? 

Do we not get a more logical explanation from the fact 
that he was a man of wonderful genius, of great observa- 
tion, diversified reading, of large acquaintance with men 
learned in all these subjects ; and that he had the faculty 
and genius, not only to absorb their knowledge, but to give 
its results in accurate and technical terms? 

It is impossible that in his short life of fifty-two years 
he could have had experience and practice in all or any of 
these professions. 

While this later argument is something like a non 
scquitw, I hope I have succeeded in convincing you gentle- 
men that it was not necessary for a man of Shakespeare's 
genius to have been a lawyer, doctor, or a sailor, a butcher 
or a theologian in order to have written these great works 
of his that will live through time. 

Truly, Ben Johnson says : 

"Thou art a monument without a tomb, 
And art alive still, while thy book doth live, 



59 

And we have wits to read, and praise to give. 

* ,:, * # * * * 

* * * * 

He was not of an age, but for all time !" 
Shakespeare's description of Posthumus Leonatus, given 
in Cymbeline, Act i, Scene i, is applicable to himself. 

And then again, what Canterbury says ol King Henry 
Fifth, Act i, Scene i : 

"Hear him but reason in divinity, 
And, all-admiring, with an inward wish 
You would desire the king were made a prelate : 
Hear him debate of commonwealth affairs, 
You would say it hath been all in all his study : 
List his discourse of war, and you shall hear 
A fearful battle render'd you in music : 
Turn him to any cause of policy, 
The Gordian knot of it he wall unloose, 
Familiar as his garter: that, when he speaks, 
The air, a charter'd libertine, is still, 
And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears, 
To steal his sweet and honey'd sentences ; 
So that the art and practice part of life 
Must be the mistress to this theoric : 
Which is a wonder how his grace should glean it, 
Since his addiction was to courses vain, 
His companies unletter'd, rude, and shallow, 
His hours fill'd up with riots, banquets, sports, 
And never noted in him any study, 
An)' retirement, any sequestration, 
From open haunts and popularity." 
Does this not give us an intimation of the great intuitive 
genius of Shakespeare ? Has he not himself explained how 
he obtained the knowledge and information which his works 
disclose? Is it possible to analyze inspiration? And in this 



6o 



great literary kaleidoscope do there not shine forth so many- 
beautiful gems culled from all sources that it is impossible 
to account for them except that they are the fruits of genius 
and inspiration? 



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